The Ambiguity of the Term "Christian Nationalism"

 I have commented before that I had never heard of "Christian nationalism" and I did not know anybody who was one.  As it turns out, the term, "Christian nationalism" is yet another amorphous and meaningless term that can be used by Leftist to mean anything they want it to mean and to apply as a disparagement to anyone they target.  Today, at Townhall.com Scott Hogenson lays out the truth about the term, and the Lefts goals in using it in Christianity and the Hypocrisy of the Left.

The American Left is like a dog with a bone when it comes to attacking religion. Barely a day goes by without somebody holding some totalitarian worldview yelping about how Christianity in the United States is creating a new era of racism or anti-LGBTQism or some other form of generalized hate for something or other.

The Left has been insisting ever since the Supreme Court decided Engel v. Vitale (1962) that having prayers in public places is a violation of the Establishment clause of the Constitution. This ruling, though now more than 60 years old, is nonetheless a novel reading of the original intent of the Constitution and needs to be taken up by the originalists on the Court.

America had long practiced a civic religion which prayed to the God of the Bible. Not mentioning Jesus made such prayers applicable to Jews, who could pray along. Indeed, the Lord's Prayer was given to us by a Jew, though it is a fundamentally Christian prayer. And if the Muslims want to maintain that their god Allah is the same as the God of the Bible, well, they should not be offended either. No, the only people offended were the "freedom from religion" folks. But these people are misguided, for there are no true atheists. If a person does not worship God, he will ultimately worship something else, usually himself.

To illustrate the illogical nature of the term "Christian Nationalism," Hogenson points to a pray offered to the nation just after the D-Day invasion of Europe had begun during WWII by Franklin D. Roosevelt. He starts off with this:

Such dangerous behavior is surely fueled by the irresponsible rhetoric of the Right-Wing political class. Imagine the fevered ravings of a radical Christian Nationalist talking to and through the national media, to practically insist that freedom loving Americans abandon our civic norms with the veiled demand, “I ask you to join with me in prayer."

This extremist invokes the name of “almighty God” with a hubristic request for providential intervention “to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization.” This theocratic rant then leads to imploring this almighty God “to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith,” and this toxic sentiment is punctuated with “O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee.”

Perhaps the darkest passage comes when this man, this threat to democracy, tries to coerce mindless simps into submission saying “Thy will be done, Almighty God,” as if some spirit in the sky has anything to do with anything. He then demands that “people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer,” a hair's breadth away from the establishment of religion. It’s nothing short of a militant call for replacing our cherished freedoms with an oppressive, government-imposed belief system.

...snip...

It was 80 years ago this week that Roosevelt sat before the microphones on the evening of June 6, 1944, to deliver a nationally broadcast prayer for the men who that day came ashore at Normandy to wrest control of Europe from the grip of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist Workers ideology.

You can read Roosevelt's prayer in full in Hogenson's article. Roosevelt's prayer though was in the great tradition of America stretching back to the Continental Congress and George Washington. Please read the whole thing and decide for yourself if there is anything offensive to any reasonable American, one who isn't perpetually offended.